In the 1960s Tilly Blanding, a 13-year-old budding civil rights activist, had to make a life changing decision: stand up or stay home.

Tilly had been threatened at gunpoint by a racist earlier that day as she stood on a picket line in her South Carolina hometown. Her mother asked her to consider staying home after the incident.

Tilly made the bold choice to go back to the picket line. She knew her brothers and sisters needed her presence to help ensure that working men and women of color would have equal access to good jobs, public schools, healthcare and the election booth. She learned from Martin Luther King Jr and other great leaders that when working people stand united for common cause, we’re unstoppable.

Today Tilly, a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Virginia 512 member, is urging working parents, grandparents and millennials to stand with her this Labor Day as we ignite a new fight for civil rights, and social and economic justice at rallies, protests, townhalls and other events.

On Labor Day, Americans traditionally join together for parades and picnics. This Labor Day, Tilly and thousands of other working people are going to stand together and call on elected officials at all levels to deliver on their number one job: raising our standard of living by ensuring good jobs that pay a living wage.

There are two main ways to raise wages: increase the minimum wage or bargaining through a union. Over the past five years, people from California to New York and dozens of cities in between have seen the minimum wage put on a path to $15 an hour.

But tens of millions still struggle to buy groceries, pay the bills or save a little for retirement. That’s why we’re renewing the call for a union so that no one working full time has to live in poverty.

The labor movement has been a bridge between working people of color and economic opportunity since the civil rights era. According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), black union workers on average earn 16.4% higher wages than their non-union counterparts. Black women in unions earn 37% more than their female counterparts, while black men earn 35% more.

Black union households aren’t the only ones who have benefited from the labor movement. By standing together with working people who are unable to join a union, we have also begun to make changes in fast-food restaurants, retail stores, airports and institutions of higher learning by successfully fighting for higher wages, safer working conditions and a stronger voice in the workplace.

However, labor unions have been under constant attack in recent decades by wealthy corporations – who don’t want to pay family-sustaining wages or treat working people with dignity – and self-interested politicians whose electoral fate rests on contributions from corporations and billionaires.

These attacks have led to a decline of union membership among black workers in our country. In 2016, unions represented only 14.2% of black workers, compared to 31.7% in 1983.

We see the results of this decline in our everyday lives. 75-year-old David Tucker lives in District Heights, Maryland, less than 10 miles but a world away from the US Capitol building. He still works as a skycap at the same airport members of Congress fly in and out of every week because his low wages and lack of an employer-sponsored retirement plan made it hard to save for the day when he could no longer work.

Working parents like Tolanda Barnette, a child care provider in Durham, North Carolina, struggle to cover basic living expenses on a full-time job. Black millennials, like 22-year-old home healthcare provider Tatiana Anderson, worry about their ability to get ahead in this economy even with a college education.

These stories are just a few examples of why we can’t afford to stay home this Labor Day. Without unions and a $15 minimum wage, people of color will continue to lose out in our rigged economy at disproportionate rates. Across the country, more than half of black workers and nearly 60% of Latino workers are paid less than $15 per hour.

Unless working people in every region of the country can win unions, crooked politicians and corporations will continue to rig the system and communities of color will lose.

On the day when a racist threatened 13-year-old Tilly Blanding, she told her mother that she wouldn’t stay home because “that’s what want us to do.” We must follow Tilly’s example the Labor Day weekend by standing up for justice on all fronts and a better way of life for every family. Staying home is no longer an option.

Gerry Hudson is the Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union